Christmas party

Last Saturday was my church's annual Christmas party. I know what you're thinking, and just because it was a church party doesn't mean it was boring. As usual, it was held at our former pastors house which is a beautiful old victorian style home in the Highlands of Louisville. She has the perfect home for Christmas entertaining. Add about 70 people, food, music, beverages, and a "best dressed" contest and you have yourself quite an evening. It was an evening filled with fellowship and fun. Oh, and I was the female "best dressed" winner...which i know is hard for some of you to believe since i'm never well dressed. My trusty senior prom dress has never failed to knock out the competition though, and this evening was no exception.


Tiffany, me, Katie, and Kelly

Jenny and I don't half-ass things...so we went all out for the dress up contest. (Jenny is actually wearing a women's suit that my mom gave me last year and I tucked away thinking "this may come in handy someday"- note the silky lapel). Here, we decided to do a "senior prom" picture. A HUGE thanks to Jenny for agreeing to play along and be my "prom date" If only we'd had a balloon arch.

scott begged me to take a picture with him, so i obliged. :)

And this one isn't at the christmas party. Towards the end of the summer Catherine, Katie, Tiff, and I competed in a win, lose, or draw, game night to raise money for charity. The prize was a dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and despite the fact that half of our team abandoned the game halfway through, we still managed to emerge victorious. That was in August. Finally, on monday December 17, team "baby fish mouth" celebrated our win, lose, or draw victory with dinner at the CPK. Spinach artichoke dip, miso salad, goat cheese pizza ..mmmm. They were playing a lot of good songs over the speakers that night and so we broke into song a few times too. We could have easily been on an episode of the partridge family or some 80's sitcom. good times.

seeing with your eyes closed

Before I begin, let me just say that finals are over and all my symptoms of stress have faded away. I have an amazing amount of free time now that classes are over. I'm such a dork though that my last final was on friday and on saturday night I..... stayed at home and read a book. (although this time it was a book i didn't have to read, so that made it special).

Seeing with your eyes closed...

At Sunday's church service the theme was about "keeping watch." This being the season of advent there was a story of the shepherds keeping watch and how it was, in part, their watchfulness that allowed them to see God come into the world. The service was good and was filled with a lot of talk of "watching" and "beholding" and how important those things are in seeing God in the world. At the end of the sermon some music played and along with it was a slide show that displayed close ups of people's eyes. During communion we were invited to make eye contact with those giving the elements, and at the end of the service we held candle's and sang one of my favorite songs which contains the words, "spirit wash over me, open my eyes so I can see all there is around me."

Now, the service in itself was pretty good, but what was most fascinating to me was that during the entire service, sitting in the second row was a "blind" woman with her seeing eye dog. Yeah, think about that for a minute.

I'm sure the woman wasn't offended or anything since the multiple references to "watching" and eyes were largely metaphors, but it did get me thinking. During the service when I thought of "keeping watch" and seeing God in the world I was thinking of looking for God's presence in average people. You know, of seeing God when a kid in the lunchroom helps another kid pick up his spilled tray. Or of seeing a smile and kind words from the "dirty bum" on the street. Still, most of my thoughts involved the literal act of "seeing." And then I thought, "would it be easier to see God in the world if you didn't use your eyes...if you were like the woman in the second row?"

I've been told that something like 90% of our information is obtained through the eyes. I've also heard it said that 80% (i could be off on that stat) of the information we convey is actually non-verbal. Intonation and body language actually convey as much information as the actual words themselves. But what if you're blind? Without relying on all those visual cues, blind people must have developed super-sensitivity to other things. They actually "see" differently. How then, would a blind person see God in the world?

I do think there are ways that sighted people are disadvantaged in seeing God. We have a lot more information to sort though and be distracted by. I assume that the lady in the second row takes no notice of what brand my clothes are or whether my hair is dirty and uncombed. She probably doesn't know what car I drive or whether I'm wearing a fat diamond ring or if I'm covered in tatoos. Many of us "filter" the people we meet with visual cues. I'm not saying that's always a bad thing. After all, I probably would be less likely to develop a close relationship with someone who is driving a Hummer, someone that I observe doing drugs, or someone that appears 50 years older than me. But are there times I've missed out on seeing God because i've been distracted by those visual cues? How would you choose who to meet and talk to if you couldn't see them?

...and when God looks at me, does she even bother using her eyes? ...i'll bet the woman in the second row could give me some insight as to what I "look" like to God.

i have a theory

it's final exam week at law school and i finally admitted to myself this morning that i am stressed out. i have too many things going on right now and its finally getting to me. i normally muit-task and cope pretty well, but this morning i had a mini break down. my intestines are against me, i had a small panic attack, and i even closed the door to my classroom (yep, i was/am at work) and put my head on my desk and cried. i grabbed some Muslim prayer beads off my desk and said the Lord's prayer in my head a few times which calmed me down. then i thought maybe blogging would help too. it's not usually like me to get all worked up like this....i'm attributing it to a hormone imbalance (and anyone who watched me alternate between salt and vinegar fries and sweet coca-cola last night will probably agree).

so here's my theory - you know how "they" say that the suicide rate goes up around the holidays, well, maybe its not the holidays that causes it...maybe its exams and report cards. Think about it. as i recall, the age group most at risk for suicide is in the late teen - early twenty range and those are the people who are finishing up finals and getting their grades over these next few weeks. this is a stressful time of year for that age group. if i'm right, there should be another "suicide bubble" around May/June. Somebody should check that out. (and by the way, i propose this in all seriousness and mean no disrespect to those affected by depression/suicide)

-----------

i finished my negotiable instruments (a.k.a. the law of checks and promissory notes) in about an hour last night. It was a 50 question true/false exam. On the one hand it was comforting to know that i had at least a 50% chance on every question, on the other hand its stressful to have your grade for 4 months worth of class and studying to hinge on 50 questions. There was one section of the exam that i was particularly intrigued by...for psychological purposes though, not legal ones. The professor gave a fact pattern (story problem) and then followed up with twelve questions that were paired off so that one would be true and the other false. Example:

1. Mr. Smith will prevail over Mr. Baker on indorser's obligation

2. Mr. Smith will lose against Mr. Baker on indorser's obligation.

Interesting don't you think. obviously one is true and the other is false so i would either get both of them right or both of them wrong...unless, i put "true" for both questions which guarantees that i'll get one right and one wrong. Tricky, eh? This is where you separate those who know they know what they're talking about and those who think they know what they're talking about (that sounded pretty "rumsfeldian" of me didn't it?) So what does one do in that situation? Go for broke or cut your losses? I agonized, trying to figure out the correct answer and finally decided that if I was more than 70% sure, I would go all out and answer true and false. If I was really undecided, I would cut my losses and answer true for both questions. Because of that section, I know I didn't get a 100% on the test, but overall I felt pretty good about it. On most of the questions I actually had a rationale for my answer and was 80-90% confident. Hey, at least its over....and it was better than last years civil procedure exam on which you, reader, could have done better than I.

well, i suppose i ought to do some 'real' work. thanks for listening to my therapeutic blogging.